


Five ways Arrom/Daniel left Vis Uban before SG-1 showed up

by smilebackwards



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: 5 Things, Amnesia, Ascension, Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-02
Updated: 2010-02-02
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilebackwards/pseuds/smilebackwards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arrom dreams of flickering faces, dark hair, words running off his tongue in a language he doesn’t remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five ways Arrom/Daniel left Vis Uban before SG-1 showed up

**Author's Note:**

> Written for prompt [89.02](http://community.livejournal.com/sg1_five_things/209776.html) at [](http://sg1-five-things.livejournal.com/profile)[**sg1_five_things**](http://sg1-five-things.livejournal.com/)

i.

Twelve turns of the sun after Arrom arrives on Vis Uban, men come through the chappa’ai. They wear leather and scowls and carry sharp-tipped spears.

Aldon tries to reason with them, to explain that if they wish to lay claim to Vis Uban they will not be disputed, and begs only that they allow the settlers time to gather their belongings and send scouts to find another planet of safe harbor.

The men glance away from him with disdain. One of them says, simply, “You will leave now, or you will perish,” and slices his spear through Aldon’s arm.

The people watching scream, frightened, as Aldon clutches his arm to stem the flow of blood. They grab food and blankets, children and the infirm, and make quickly for the chappa’ai. The settlement has always been one of peace. They do not have soldiers.

Arrom spares a look back at the quiet ruins that surround the abandoned settlement. He has wondered if perhaps they hold a secret, but there will be no chance to find out now.

 

ii.

Arrom dreams of flickering faces, dark hair, words running off his tongue in a language he doesn’t remember. When he wakes, only a name remains. _Shar’e._ He grasps at it, forces his mind down empty pathways, searching, only to fall back asleep, exhausted and thwarted.

In his dreams he hears a light laugh turn to a scream, sees two hands clasped and ripped apart.

There is no one named Shar’e on Vis Uban, but Shamda tells Arrom that there are many worlds behind the circle of the chappa’ai. He teaches Arrom to make the symbols glow, sequences which will take him to marketplaces and trading partners, which symbols will bring him back to Vis Uban where he is always welcome. Arrom makes the symbols glow.

Memory comes in trickling starts and stops.

On his travels he comes to a planet full of sand. He remembers Shar’e’s cold eyes flashing gold, a power device on her wrist burning out the synapses in his brain, while her warm voice whispers, anguished, “Save the boy,” and “I love you.” He remembers that she died at the hand of a friend.

When Arrom returns, desolate, to Vis Uban, they tell him visitors have come and gone. Shamda takes great pleasure in reciting the new aphorisms he was taught by their leader.

“The pen is mightier than the sword,” sparks something in Arrom’s mind, but he pushes it back. He has had enough of memory.

 

iii.

Great ships hover over Vis Uban and the settlers run in every direction, trying to find friends and family and shelter. The ships shoot fire, leaving vast gouges in the earth and the charred smell of quenched flames.

Arrom, spurred by some buried instinct, tries to lead people to the chappa’ai, but a white light scoops him up and he can only watch as the settlement burns and his friends fall.

 

iv.

The people of Vis Uban are kind. They give Arrom a name and a tent. They wrap him in comfortable robes and press bowls of stew and garren fruit into his empty hands.

Arrom wonders if this kindness is deserved. He doesn’t remember who he once was, but to wake up naked, alone and without memory can only be a punishment.

He cannot remember events or faces but there is knowledge, locked up inside his head, about a thousand things. When one of the women in the settlement goes through a difficult childbirthing, he mixes a pain-calming poultice out of vaguely familiar herbs and coaxes her, gentle and firm, until the child emerges, healthy and wailing.

Men and women, speaking a language foreign to anyone on Vis Uban, come through the chappa’ai wishing to trade and Arrom finds himself bargaining with them. They leave with smiles and Vis Urban’s excess of garren fruit in exchange for powder which combines with water into a sweet-smelling drink that soothes the nerves. When the traders return to establish further ties of friendship, they invite Arrom back to their own settlement to see what other items of trade they have to offer.

Arrom enjoys their hospitality for several weeks and returns to Vis Uban with tales of lean meat and beautiful weavings. Aldon tells him that in his absence travelers came wishing to explore the nearby ruins and left disappointed. Arrom is unhappy to have missed the excitement, but he soon puts it behind him. He still has much work to do if he is going to make up for who he once was.

 

v.

Shamda and Aldon are patient and sympathetic, but Arrom’s inability to remember frustrates him to the point of ire. He withdraws from the people who would call him friend and spends hours in the confines of his tent, grappling for faces seen out of the corner of his eye and names on the tip of his tongue.

Finally, Shamda sits before him and offers a choice. “There are stories,” he says carefully, “of a man who can heal minds. But the journey is treacherous and would take you far from Vis Uban. And they may only be stories,” Shamda cautions.

Arrom is willing to take any chance. Shamda gives him every detail from the tales, gathers him supplies, and writes down the symbols that will open the chappa’ai. Arrom travels over mountains and rivers and plains and almost gives up hope, but he finds a village and is directed to a ramshackle hut which houses a stooped old man.

A week later, he remembers that his name is Daniel. A month and he knows how his parents died. Two months and he feels the pain of his lost wife. Three months and three figures fill in, sardonic and brilliant and honorable.

Four months later, Daniel journeys back to the chappa’ai and dials the symbols for Earth.

 


End file.
